Life Through A Spyglass
by LittleShush
Summary: 19 year old Alex Rider ponders a half decade's worth of decisions on a lazy Sunday morning. Drabble, definite one shot.


**Hi all,**

**Another tiny little drabble, this was definitely a random inspiration. And again I had to get it out of my system before I could continue with my longer stories. Anyway, it really is rather strange and not really my normal sort of style. I tend to go into the whole story a lot more but please feel free to review.**

**Anyway, let me know what you think and I'll give you cyber brownies for your efforts.**

**Shush x**

**Disclaimer: Yada Yada, I own Alex Rider. Completely. Not**

Alex Rider slowly opened his eyes to see the familiar deep blue painted walls of his bedroom. Summer sunlight streamed through the window, where he had left the curtains open and he slowly rolled onto his back, wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and go back to sleep. He shifted his head to the side and looked at the digital clock on the side with a slight frown. He glanced at the date and averted his eyes to stare back up at the ceiling, not quite prepared to attempt a full bodied movement just yet.

Sunday.

"Day of rest" Jack had told him years ago, one Sunday, he had been out of bed by 7am, he never believed her then, being only one of two days he got off from school. He used to be up at the crack of dawn to play football with Tom. But that was before it all changed.

15th March.

Five years, to the day, since he had started working for MI6. His eyes caught a particularly prominent blemish in the paint on the ceiling and he stared at it for a second wondering where it had come from. The more he stared at it the more his mind wandered,

A blemish on an unending patch of white, what some would describe as his last five years, a speck waiting to be dusted away so he could carry on with what had promised once to be a well fulfilled and long lived life. He wondered to himself once again, as he had previously, what he would be doing at this precise moment if he hadn't decided all those years ago to follow this path. If he hadn't allowed his curiosity to get the better of him.

Would he be in university? Attempting to apply himself to some degree that would drag him deeper and deeper into debts clutches like Sabina? Or would he be in a steady job? Earning a good wage and out drinking on the weekends with a large group of friends like Tom?

HE didn't know. But he did know what he had seen and done in the time they were learning to act like the young responsible adults they had grown into. Alex smiled slightly as he thought the point of responsible was debatable and he let out a small sigh,

He often wondered what his life would have been like if he had the same decisions as them, which course to major in, which girl to try to get the attention of in the local bar, rather than which way was the best to extract the information he so desperately needed from a half deranged mad man. But in the end, the decisions were the same,

Which direction is your life going to take?

Alex knew if he had just made sure he had failed in a couple of assignments when he was younger, he probably wouldn't be where he was now, but was he really enough of a person to allow others to suffer when he thought he could do something about it, could he be the one to blame when everything went wrong?

The solid answer to that in his mind was no. It had always been the answer, and it was the reason he had currently completed 32 assignments with just one failure.

And while the going hadn't always been easy, actually, half the time it had been hell and he had made sacrifices, he managed to persuade himself each and every time, that it was worth it.

That was until Jack died, Alex was away and he was only 17. It was the first and last time he had allowed any link to him to be left unguarded, and while Tom may complain he looks gay, and Sabina moans she can't get a date because of the agents that followed them around, Alex wouldn't let up on the condition they were guarded at all times.

And if they complained directly to him, he brushed them off with hurried whispers about safety and a silent pleading in his eyes that only a select hadful ever managed to understand.

Then the whole world appeared to change at his feet, everywhere was darker, he wasn't willing to forgive either Blunt or Jones for her life, that was so shortly stubbed out and they threw him over and over again into situations men twice as old wouldn't be able to cope with.

Yet, no matter how many times Alex had walked out of the office silently praying that this would be his last and he would be able to see Jack again, it never happened. He was never granted, as he called it then, as the eternal calm he so desperately craved. He pushed both Sabina and Tom away, while they were still guarded, he refused to allow them access and it was then that Jones had called time on the whole affair.

While at the time he silently wished that meant no more assignments, it didn't. It meant he was going to get a partner to try to restrain him in what had become rather wayward tactics at success – some would say suicidal.

Alex blinked slowly, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling as he remembered staring down the barrel of the gun, held by Hughes, the leader of the cartel the duo were sent to infiltrate, his eyes sending a desperate message to the dangerous man.

_Pull the trigger, just do it, I want out_

And it had ended up with a bullet lodged in a brain, just not his as he had wished. In fact, his captor had a dirty little smirk on his lips as the bullet ripped into his skull, and his partner ushered him along with hurried words until they were well out of reach of the souls they had managed so spectacularly to piss off.

It had been that one small drip of presence, in a long and tiring working schedule, that started a train of events Alex couldn't quite describe and it had taken a long time. His partner, the first he had officially worked with, had called it "a work in progress" right up until about a year ago, for him to get out of the slump that was the aftermath of Jack. The one time he hadn't quite managed to convince himself the choices he had made were worth it.

But there had been people to pick up the pieces, and in a truly ironic fashion, they were people he would never have met if it hadn't been for his cursed curiosity in the first place. The assignments kept coming, and each one he would work with his partner, rapidly coming to accept each other as equals in and outside of the work environment, and unspoken conversations constantly hung between them. And Alex slowly opened up, a small spattering of light reflecting into what was his dark world as he came to accept the people around him, no matter how he had set his mind against it when he had first met them.

Alex smiled slightly as he heard a quiet crash from downstairs and he counted down the seconds until he heard the normal morning shout.

"Alex" Ben's voice yelled up the stairs and the young man smirked as he pushed himself up,

"Yeah?"

"You're turn to cook breakfast, the guys will be here in 10," Ben hollered and Alex let his body thump back onto the comfortable mattress for a few minutes. He allowed himself to stare at the blemish on the ceiling for a couple more minutes until he heard the doorbell go. He quickly pushed himself out of bed and smiled as he pulled on a tracksuit, determining to have a shower after breakfast. He jogged down the stairs and walked into the kitchen with a small smile,

"Morning," he said brightly and Ben looked at him with a raised eyebrow, a silent question being asked and Alex waved a hand dismissively at him,

"Nah uh Cub. Come on," Eagle pushed with a grin and Alex rolled his eyes,

"I need to paint my ceiling. There's a mark on it," Alex said quietly as he moved towards the stove and Ben chuckled,

"You've only just got back and the first thing you release is a mark on the ceiling, Cub?" Wolf asked disbelievingly and Alex raised an eyebrow at him,

"I think it's more a metaphorical thing dumb-ass. Even I noticed that," Eagle muttered and Alex smiled to himself as he pulled the eggs from the fridge and went about making the omelette.

Yes, the last five years hadn't been all that easy. But maybe a blemish is hidden just as easily with a tin of new paint.

Alex cast a glance over his shoulder at the four men who had become like family since he had started working with Ben and he smiled to himself as Wolf smacked Eagle around the back of the head with a threatening growl. Alex simply revelled in the feeling of warmth and security here in this room with them, his impromptu family of sorts.

And sometimes, maybe, just sometimes, the choices he made were worth it.

Alex turned his head when Ben stood beside him and the whispered question was asked,

"You okay?" Ben asked quietly, no hint of being patronising, no coddling concern, just a generally curious question and Alex nodded slowly,

"Yeah. Just thinking,"

"Don't. It's Sunday. Day of rest kiddo" Ben said with a smirk, Alex just smiled at that and carried on making the omelettes while the others were bickering behind him. The same as always.


End file.
